Calamity from the Skies
by GoingInside
Summary: A story untold for thousands of years... Once, the Cetra were numerous and prosperous, cultivating The Planet and living in harmony with nature. Two millenia later, they were extinct. Their decline began two thousand years ago, at the first Meteorfall... Witness the world before Midgar, before Mako energy, before the name of Sephiroth was ever uttered... the world of The Ancients.
1. The Temple

"_... Ziedrich became convinced that The Planet itself was imprisoning Minerva, who he claimed was a true goddess, separate and opposed to Gaia, and sought desperately for a way to free her. His research eventually came across the black materia, Call Meteor, and he conceived a plan to use the materia to open a hole in The Planet itself through which Minerva could escape. He never lived to see what actually did crawl up from that massive crater."_

-From an unearthed Cetra tablet

The chanting of the old men rose in a sonorous drone, the words indistinguishable, the meaning, if there was one, lost to the few Cetra who watched this solemn ceremony. The verdant green jungle rose around them, a wild, untamed tropical forest filled with life, both plant and animal, flora and fauna, that buzzed and howled in counterpoint to the words of the ancients that stood around the deep hole that had been dug in the ground.

There was a certain irony to placing the instrument of such death and destruction in the midst of lush, fecund life. Terra shook her head, eyes unfocused, looking beyond the scene that played out in front of her. _No, not irony_, she thought. _Destiny_. It was the core of her belief, the belief of the Cetra, that life begat death, and death, life. A constant cycle of expiration and rebirth embodied by that great current that flowed beneath them in the form of the Lifestream: The very lifeblood of The Planet.

But still... to think that one of her own, a Cetra like her, had caused the meteor to fall. Terra's blue eyes squeezed shut, and she ran a hand through her long, brown hair. Even the memory of that day pained her. More then pain, it was agony. Ziedrich had been defeated, his evil cult brought low, but not before he had used the black materia far in the north. There were those who had hoped that stopping the renegade Cetra would stop the fall of the planetoid, but by that time, it was too late. The meteor had fallen, ripping a massive wound into Gaia.

She remembered it well, even half a year later. The heart-stopping terror of the moment; the bright, actinic, blinding flash in the sky, visible even from hundreds of miles away and putting the rising sun to shame; then the scream. It had been like no scream ever uttered by human or Cetra, it had gone on and on, a cry of pain and anguish tearing at the inside of Terra's head for a small eternity. It had brought her to her knees, eliciting a sympathetic screech of her own. Her voice had been hoarse for days afterward and her mind numb. The scream had come from The Planet itself, a wail of agony and violation that all Cetra had been able to hear/feel, no matter how far away they were. Some of the more sensitive had died that day; others had been rendered comatose or brain-damaged.

Terra sometimes wondered if they were the lucky ones.

The Planet had survived, however, as had the Cetra. Ziedrich was dead, as were his followers. Only the black materia remained, and this ceremony was meant to insure that the dark gem could never be used again, at least not easily. She wasn't sure if she believed that, however. Her faith had been shaken in the past few months.

"Surely, there's a better way to do this," her friend Roth muttered from beside her. She glanced at the taller Cetra, with his shaggy silvery hair and green eyes. He cut a striking, imposing figure, standing there with his long, thin sword hanging at his side. Roth was one of the few Cetra warriors, an aberration in many ways in a race of healers and cultivators, although it had been the warriors that had been their saviors in the battles against Ziedrich's corrupted Cetra. Roth himself had fought in those battles, and it had marked him with more than physical scars. He had grown cynical and withdrawn from almost everyone. Terra glanced down... everyone but her. They had been friends since childhood, and she took heart whenever he stood near her. "Bury it in the deepest hole we can find, throw it in the ocean, into a volcano if we need to, but this?" Roth continued, shaking his head, as if unable to believe the absurdity of what the Elders had decided.

The chanting reached a new pitch, the old men raising their arms, as if in supplication. "Things lost have a way of being found," Terra said. "It's the way of this world, Roth. Everything comes back around eventually."

Roth snorted. "So instead, we hide the black materia in plain sight. It's an interesting idea, I suppose."

Terra heard the skepticism in his voice. His faith had been shaken as well. "Here we go," she said under her breath, sensing the swell of magic in the air. The black materia lay at the bottom of the deep well that had been dug in the midst of the jungle. It glowed darkly, and Terra felt a chill run through her. She imagined it must have glowed the same way when Ziedrich used the materia. But this was merely a resonance, not an activation. The glow, if one could call it that, grew into a huge sphere of non-light, filling the hole and expanding a hundred feet above it.

A weird hum filled the air, drowning out the chanting of the ancients and even the wild sounds of the jungle all around them. For an instant, Terra could see the black materia, grown to a huge size, before the transformation magic ran its course completely and changed the dark gem into something else. A stepped pyramid appeared where the materia had been, built of golden stone and towering above them, shining in the sun that beamed down from the blue sky. Heat waves were already beginning to rise from the structure as the tawny stone reflected the light.

The chanting ceased, and silence filled the clearing. The gathered Cetra stared in awe at the metamorphosis that had taken place. Even Roth was quiet. Perhaps he, too, was impressed. Either that or he was speechless at the folly of making the black materia technically _easier_ to find. A bird trilled into the quiet, and, as if it had been a signal, one of the Cetra stepped forward.

It was Betton, a member of the Elder's council, one of three that had attended this ceremony. He and his six peers usually sat in the Cetra capitol of Gran Current on the north continent, but this had been deemed important enough to warrant a council presence. Terra's lip twitched at the thought that only something of this magnitude would draw the Elders out of their city. She knew that many among her people did not approve of Gran Current. It was not the Cetra way to settle in one place, to build, to remain sedentary. The capitol was a very... human affectation.

"My friends," Betton began, speaking in a loud, but somber voice. "We have gathered here today to close an ugly chapter in our history and to right a great wrong." The older man, black hair-streaked with gray, surveyed the half circle of Cetra with icy blue eyes as if to impart the seriousness of his words. He looked tall and regal in his dark blue and green robe, and he used the image well. "We trusted in the good of our fellows, confident that no corruption among us could ever arise. We believed that our good works and our selfless actions of generations proved that the lure of power could not touch us. We were unable to conceive of a Cetra that would dare harm our home, the very Planet we live on."

Betton's eyes met Terra's momentarily, and, despite herself, she felt an almost electric jolt at the eye contact. "We were wrong," he continued. "There are none in this world, neither Cetra, nor human, nor Cosmo Tribe, that are innately immune to the temptation of power or the taint of evil. We may not be able to stop such evil from taking root, but we can check its growth, prevent it from having access to the tools it needs to spread its influence or to cause damage on a massive scale." Betton raised an arm to indicate the temple behind him. "And so, we remove the temptation of this evil from our midst, and, simultaneously, erect a monument so that we may never forget, not even millenia from now, the suffering our hubris has wrought." He paused, once again looking out at the small crowd. "Never forget," he said again.

"Never forget," a dozen voices answered, agreeing with the sentiment, if not the action. And with that, Betton stepped down, the ceremony complete. The Cetra broke into small groups, already preparing to leave. Terra could not blame them. Even transformed, it was not easy to forget what the new temple actually was, and what it represented. Although the black materia may not have been innately evil, evil suffused it now, and it served as a poignant reminder of the pain of that day, picking at a wound that was all too fresh. The half-dozen old men that had conducted the actual transformation streamed slowly up the many steps into the temple itself. Having performed the ceremony, they were also bound to the structure, and would remain there, eternal guardians against the misuse of the materia embodied by it.

Although they had all volunteered for this sacred task, Terra could not help but feel sympathy for them. The temple's life was their life, and they could not die, though thousands of years might reduce them to shrunken husks of the men they had once been. Self-sacrifice, too, was a tenant of the Cetra. Elder Bune followed the old men, a shining gem in his hand. He would seal the temple behind them using the Keystone, which would then itself be hidden away. Safeguards within safeguards. The last year had changed the Cetra, made them paranoid. Even with Ziedrich gone, his evil still spread like a virus, irrevocably damaging all who his deeds had touched.

Without a word, Terra turned and walked away from the small crowd, heading towards the chocobos tied up nearby. The oversized, flightless birds warked and chirped amongst themselves as she approached. Roth fell in beside her. "He did speak well," the warrior admitted reluctantly.

"That he did," Terra agreed, her mind elsewhere. "I just hope Betton's right."

Roth looked at her inquisitively. "About what?" he asked, gallantly helping her onto her chocobo once they reached the riding beasts. Terra patted the bird's head as she mounted, smiling slightly as the bird leaned into her hand, almost like a cat. "What he said about remembering?"

"No," the brown-haired Cetra said quietly. She closed her eyes, reaching out with her senses, feeling the ebb and flow of the Lifestream beneath them. "The part about bringing this chapter to a close."

There was a long silence. Even without seeing her friend, Terra could feel Roth looking at her. "Ziedrich is dead, Terra," he said at last. "The black materia is... it can't be used anymore. It's over."

Again, Terra listened to the voice of The Planet. She had hoped that, with the transformation of the black materia, she would be able to sense some calm, some returning peace, but she felt only conflict. The young woman shuddered, and she heard herself speak, the words slipping past her lips unbidden

"It's only beginning."

Author's Note: A few quick items, probably things that you've already noticed. The resemblance between Terra/Roth and Aeris/Sephiroth is not accidental. One of the fascinating things about the cosmology of the Lifestream is that the spirits of the departed return in some form. So someday, two thousand years down the line, these two friends are reborn into people who are adversaries, committed to entirely different goals. The tragedy and the irony appeals to me.

Secondly, Ziedrich... You may recall from the game that there is an item called the Ziedrich Armlet. I don't know who Ziedrich was intended to be, or even if it was some actual word that was mistranslated (as often happened in FF7), but it sounded like a name to me. Who could he have been? Well his armor is badass, but it doesn't have any materia slots, meaning he was either someone who was very physically strong, or, perhaps, someone who didn't need materia to use magic. Someone like a Cetra perhaps? Just speculation.

Third, it's never said that the North Crater was originally caused by use of the black materia, but it seems to me like a logical supposition. Obviously the materia had been used before, or they could not record its effects in the Temple of the Ancients. Using this assumption, there's an amusing circularity to the black materia bringing Jenova, who influences Sephiroth, who uses the black materia. Anyways, read on, if you'd like. And comment.


	2. Large Cats and Large Birds

"_There are stories of a great migration from the stars... tales of our ancestors arriving on this Planet as immigrants from some other world out there. I don't know if there's any truth to that, or if it's only speculation. Certainly, the existence of Omega lends credence to the possibility. Perhaps, eons ago, the first Cetra came to Gaia in a similar fashion, and found the Cosmo Tribe already here."_

- Commentary from "The Study of Planet Life"

"Kind of intimidating, aren't they?" Terra asked, one hand raised to shield her eyes from the sun overhead that filtered down, mostly unabated, through masses of fluffy clouds. She stared off into the distance at Condor Hill, a rocky mount near where they had disembarked from their boat on the return trip from the new temple. The stone ridges and swells to the north were home to the huge condors of the region that even now were gathered defensively around their nests, guarding their eggs. The oversized birds stared at them forbiddingly.

Roth harrumphed, arms crossed, and Terra smiled at his predictable reaction. Of course a warrior wouldn't admit to being intimidated by anything. "I've never heard of a condor attacking anyone," the silver-haired man said at last. "No one who didn't deserve it, anyway." He favored her with a half-smile. "You're not going to steal any eggs or anything, are you?"

Terra laughed. "I'm not that hungry yet," she said. The massive avians looked sharply in her direction at the sound. She put a hand in front of her mouth, and, after a moment, the condors looked away.

Despite her words, the brunette Cetra actually found the giant birds quite beautiful in their way. They were another awe-inspiring example of the loveliness and diversity of life on Gaia. In all her travels, from one end of The Planet to the other, the wonder of it never ceased to amaze her. That was why even the thought of all life coming to an end because of one insane man's whims made her shudder. Visibly, Terra shook off the mood, wanting to enjoy the trip she was on. Roth and her would head north, through the Mythril Cave, then obtain some new chocobos from the fields on the other side of the mountains to make their way back to the great forest of Ymir, in the north of the continent. It would take several days at least, but there were many sights such as Condor Hill to make it worthwhile.

They circumnavigated the hill, keeping it to their right as they walked, the condors clustered thickly all along the ridges. The population seemed to be booming, and Terra hoped that it would continue to do so, and the avians would expand to other nesting grounds. All the while, the ocean hissed and sighed to their left. Terra's mind wandered as she walked in a peaceful daze, the sun, the breeze, the beauty of the world washing over her. It wasn't until Roth put his hand on the hilt of his sword that she realized something was wrong.

"What is it?" she asked quietly, noting the look of intensity in Roth's green eyes.

The warrior shook his head. "I'm not sure..." he said. "I think something's stalking us." Terra glanced to both sides, noting bushes and copses of trees around them, places where a predator could be hiding. "It's good, whatever it is," Roth said, half to himself.

Terra was both envious and annoyed at her friend's composure. His tone was no more concerned than if he were talking about the weather or telling her he had a pebble in his boot. He was always like that. It took a lot to ruffle Roth. "What should we do?" she asked, trying not to sound cross or worried.

"Keep walking," he replied. "Might not mean any harm."

Roth sounded calm. Terra tried to emulate him. "Let's hope not," she said airily.

The duo walked in silence for another couple minutes. Neither looked behind to see if anything was following. A lot of predators took eye contact very badly, and there was no reason to antagonize whatever it was. Suddenly, Roth stopped and drew his sword. "That's enough!" he said loudly. "Whoever you are, come out!"

_Who?_ Terra wondered. Before she could ask, she heard an unexpected noise from a nearby stand of scrub and bushes. It sounded like a breathy, inhuman laugh; not unpleasant, but definitely not something that came from a human or Cetra. She turned to look in the direction of the sound in time to see a remarkable creature emerge from the shrubs. It was quadrupedal, walking with a slow, feline grace and covered with fur in a shade of yellow that reminded her of sunlight. Amazingly, a flame of the same color flickered at the end of its long, thin tail. The creature's eyes were a deep, burnt orange, and its pupils were cat-like slits.

It was a member of the Cosmo Tribe, and a female, judging by its lack of mane.

"My apologies," the creature said in a surprisingly cultured voice. "It was an amusing game, but you were so tense I was actually beginning to wonder if you would attack me." The part-lion-part-wolf inclined its head in a bow. "My name is Senn. Again, I'm sorry if I startled you."

Roth still seemed ready to go into battle, so Terra put a calming hand on his arm as she stepped forward. She bowed respectfully to Senn. "Greetings. I'm Terra of the Cetra Ymir team," she said ceremonially. "This is my friend and escort, Roth, a Ymir-team Guardian." Stiffly, the silver-haired warrior inclined his head. Relations between the Cetra and the Cosmo Tribe were friendly, but Terra knew that her friend would not appreciate being toyed with. She understood why, but his being stand-offish was not helpful, hence her overly polite introductions, with full titles.

Senn seemed to smile, her wide feline mouth opening slightly. "A pleasure to meet you, Terra and Roth of Ymir." She took a few steps forward, sniffing curiously. "What brings the both of you this far from the great forest?"

"We had... business south of here," Terra said, glancing at Roth. The specifics of what they had been doing, of the sudden appearance of the temple in the jungle, and of the disposition of the black materia were things that would probably be best kept vague. "We were just on our way back."

The lionish head tilted and the orange eyes regarded the pair of Cetra steadily, and Terra knew that her vague answer had not gone unnoticed. "Indeed," Senn said. She lifted one paw in a passable imitation of a humanoid shrug. "Well it's a long walk from here to Ymir. If you don't mind, I would like to accompany you. I have heard much of the Cetra's good work on this continent, and I'd very much like to see it for myself."

Roth stirred, and Terra knew that he wanted her to say no. It was partially distrust, but even more than that was the simple fact that he wasn't comfortable around many people, especially strangers. Nonetheless, if they were going the same way, it would be rude and awkward to refuse, and Terra personally was fascinated by the Cosmo Tribe. They had a long history, and were tied to The Planet nearly as intimately as the Cetra themselves.

"We would be honored, Senn," Terra said with a smile, silently urging Roth to understand.

Again, that strange cat-grin. "Excellent!" Senn's tail whipped back and forth in obvious pleasure. "Then shall we go?" She paused, glancing sideways at the distant condors. "Unless you, too, were curious as to how those big birds taste?" Her voice was hopeful, and she licked her chops.

Terra giggled, and even Roth snorted a laugh. "No, thank you," the brown-haired Cetra said. Senn's shoulders drooped, and she seemed to sigh.

"Ah well... another time perhaps." She took one last look at Condor Hill before turning and padding away, Terra and Roth following.

* * *

The distant stars were alight, sharing the darkened sky with the white crescent moon and illuminating the cool spring night. The trio rested around a crackling fire, embers rising and joining the pinprick lights of the cosmos. Senn seemed fascinated by the flames, staring into them intensely, the flickering fire reflected in her large eyes. Terra stared at her, wondering what Senn saw in the blaze. Roth stared up into the sky, silent.

"Have you ever been to Cosmo Canyon?" Senn asked suddenly into the silence, not looking away from the fire.

Terra shook her head, then realized the other could not see her. "I've often wanted to go," she said honestly. "I hear it's lovely, all the earth tones of the canyon..." The Cetra paused, and looked at her quiet friend. "Roth's been there."

The warrior nodded, but continued looking up at the stars. "I remember the view when the sun was setting," he said. He looked like he was about to say something else, but didn't elaborate.

"There's a fire lit there all year round," Senn said, almost dreamily. "The Cosmo Candle. It's been burning for generations beyond count, never going out, even in the worst weather." She paused. "We call it the guardian fire." The smooth, cultured voice became heavy with sorrow. "Six months ago, when the meteor hit, the Candle went out for seven hours... we thought it was the end of the world. It wasn't until the flames roared back to life that we knew we would survive. It hasn't gone out since."

Terra looked at their small campfire, imagining. "I'd like to see it someday," she said.

The flames crackled and snapped. "I hope you do," Senn said, finally turning her head to look at the Cetra woman. "I'm sorry, camping always reminds me of home. I didn't mean to go on."

"It's okay," Terra said, smiling at the lioness. "The way you talk about Cosmo Canyon... it's obvious you love it."

Senn nodded. "There's no place like it in all the world," she said.

"Why did you leave?" Roth's question was sudden, asked in soft tones, but still sounding slightly suspicious.

For a minute, there was no sound but the crackle of the fire and the buzz of insects. "It's not until you almost lose something that you realize its worth," Senn said at last. "What if The Planet had died that day and I never saw most of it? There are so many things to explore, so many people to meet. As much as I love my home, I can't stay there forever and let the world pass me by."

"But you always have a place to return to," Terra said, a sense of longing filling her. Sometimes she envied those with homes.

Senn's orange eyes fixed on her. "You Cetra have something similar, do you not? Your... promised land?" Both Terra and Roth were silent. "I'm sorry," Senn said, "Have I said something wrong?"

Terra reached to pat the lioness reassuringly. "No, it's nothing like that, it's just..." she fumbled for words. "The promised land is a very personal belief, it's hard to explain."

"I understand," Senn said, nodding gravely.

The rest of the night passed without conversation, and the three soon fell asleep, resting peacefully beneath a sea of stars.


End file.
